Best Bets

Thurston Moore.

The feedback and noise that are Sonic Youth's hallmarks are nowhere to be found on Demolished Thoughts, Thurston Moore's newest solo album. Produced by Beck, it's a quietly intense collection of acoustic songs, sometimes dreamy, sometimes ominous, but always engrossing. These are thoughtful and precise tunes, orchestrated with violin and harp and Moore's unusual tunings and chord changes. One can imagine "Circulation" amped into a Sonic Youth rocker, but that's an exception: These Thoughts, many of which are love songs, are more ruminative than raucous. Which makes them appropriate for the sanctuary of the First Unitarian Church, where Moore and band will play. Meg Baird, the ethereal folksinger from Philly's Espers, will open.

- Steve Klinge

Male Bonding.

Three guys, who got together in London's Dalston section, play frisky, often seamlessly catchy rock-pop tunes. Endless Now, their just-released second album, refines the buzzing lo-fi flourish of last year's debut (also on Sub Pop) with some studio craft facilitated by recording at the converted church in Upstate New York where Dinosaur Jr. and the jangle-poppy Connells both tracked in the '90s. The lively thump 'n' strum of new cuts like "Bones" or the sweetly melodic "Tame the Sun" show both Male Bonding's love of classic indie rock, and kinship with hooky contemporarie.

- David R. Stampone

New this week: Our Idiot Brother

*** (out of four stars). Paul Rudd has the title role as a guileless good guy whose inescapable well-meaningness creates problems for all the friends and family in his orbit. Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, and Emily Mortimer play his exasperated sisters.

R

(sex, nudity, profanity, drugs, adult themes) - Steven Rea